Craig Hudson for The Washington Post via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) -- A measles case was confirmed in a person who traveled to Washington, D.C., on an Amtrak train, according to the D.C. Department of Health (DC Health).
The person visited multiple locations while contagious, including the southbound Amtrak Northeast Regional 175 Train and Union Station on March 19 as well as a MedStar Urgent Care in Adams Morgan on March 22, DC Health said in a press release on Tuesday.
DC Health said it is currently working to inform people who were at these locations that they may have been exposed.
Health officials are specifying that people who are "not immune" are most at-risk of infection. This includes those who are unvaccinated or who have never contracted measles before.
DC Health did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment.
"DC Public Health has notified Amtrak of a confirmed case of measles in a customer traveling on Amtrak Train 175 from New York to Washington Union Station on Wednesday, March 19," Amtrak said in a statement on Wednesday. "Amtrak is reaching out directly to customers who were on this train to notify them of possible exposure."
The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene also released a statement on Wednesday, saying it is "aware" of the confirmed case and the patient's travel.
"Public Health agencies routinely exchange information when exposures occur in other localities, and we are in communication with the DC Department of Health on this matter," the statement read in part.
The CDC has confirmed 378 measles cases so far this year in at least 17 states: Alaska, California, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont and Washington. This is likely an undercount due to delays in states reporting cases to the federal health agency.
Health officials are encouraging those who have never been vaccinated before to receive the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine.
The CDC currently recommends that people receive two vaccine doses, the first at ages 12 to 15 months and the second between 4 and 6 years old. One dose is 93% effective, and two doses are 97% effective, the CDC says. Most vaccinated adults don't need a booster.
ABC News' Matt Foster and Othon Leyva contributed to this report.
AUSTIN – Three weeks after U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turner’s death and just over a month before the state’s next uniform election, Gov. Greg Abbott has not yet called a special election to fill the seat representing parts of Houston, a Democratic stronghold, in Congress.
Turner, who previously served in the Texas House for nearly three decades before becoming mayor of Houston, died March 5, two months into his first term representing Texas’ 18th Congressional District. His funeral was held in Houston on March 15.
Turner was elected to Congress last year after his predecessor and political ally, former U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, died in office after a battle with pancreatic cancer.
Abbott has the sole authority to call a special election to fill Turner’s seat for the rest of the two-year term. State law does not specify a deadline for the governor to order a special election. If called, the election must happen within two months of the announcement.
But the Republican governor has little incentive to send another Democrat to Congress.
Turner’s death — in addition to the death this month of an Arizona Democrat, U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva — comes at a critical moment for Republicans, who hold a razor-thin majority in the House and can afford few defections on any votes if all Democrats remain united in opposition.
Congressional District 18 is a solidly blue district encompassing downtown Houston and several of the city’s historic neighborhoods, including Third Ward and parts of The Heights and Acres Homes.
With Turner’s seat vacant, the House breaks down to 218 Republicans and 213 Democrats, allowing the GOP to lose two votes and still win a majority on the floor. The Republican margin would drop to one vote if the seat were filled, likely by another Democrat.
Democrats blasted Abbott for not calling a special election, arguing that he was depriving Texans of representation in Congress.
“Abbott is leaving 800,000 Texans voiceless at a pivotal moment in our nation’s history,” state Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston and Texas House Democratic Caucus Chair, said in a statement. “The people of Texas need the governor to start doing his job — honor the memory of Sylvester Turner and give the good people of District 18 their constitutional representation back.”
U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic minority leader, highlighted the delay on Tuesday. “Why hasn’t the Texas Governor called a special election to fill this vacant seat?” he wrote on social media.
“An announcement on a special election will be made at a later date,” Abbott Press Secretary Andrew Mahaleris said in a statement last week that did not address whether House Republicans’ margin was factoring into the governor’s decision.
The next scheduled election date in Texas is May 3. According to the state election code, Abbott would have to order the special election by March 28 for it to take place in May. But the practical deadline to call a May 3 election may have already passed, due to how much time the state needs to program voting machines and prepare and mail ballots.
The Texas Secretary of State’s office did not respond to a question about how much time the state generally requires to carry out an election.
Chad Dunn, a longtime Democratic Party lawyer, argued that there was plenty of time for the state to execute a special election on May 3 if Abbott ordered it.
While Texas law does not set a deadline for the governor to call a special election, Dunn added, “the assumption of Texas laws is that the state doesn’t want to be without representation in Congress.”
Historically, states were “eager” to ensure their entire delegation was present in Congress, Dunn said. Extreme partisanship in the broader political climate has changed that.
“Rather than pursue the interests of their state,” he argued, “some partisan governors are not moving expeditiously with replacement elections in these circumstances because they think that benefits their political party.”
In February 2021, after the death of U.S. Rep Ron Wright, R-Arlington, Abbott called a special election to fill Wright’s seat on the third day after his burial, or just two weeks after his death.
Abbott called a special election to fill Jackson Lee’s seat just over a week after her funeral, and 17 days after her death.
In those cases, however, there were several months before the next uniform election date.
Abbott could also declare an “emergency” special election, which allows for an election to take place outside the May or November uniform election dates.
He called for an emergency election on June 30, 2018 to replace former U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Corpus Christi, who resigned that April. Then, Abbott pointed to the recovery from Hurricane Harvey as justifying an emergency election.
Democrats in New York are also considering holding off on calling a special election as soon as U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Republican, leaves her seat to pursue her nomination to be US ambassador to the United Nations. Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, ordered a special election to fill Grijalva’s seat days after his death.
Article originally published by The Texas Tribune. To read the originally published article, click here.
AUSTIN – Some Jewish Texans on Tuesday supported a measure to address a rise in antisemitism in schools, while others said it would not only stifle free speech but make them less safe.
They testified Tuesday evening on Senate Bill 326 in the Senate’s K-16 Education Committee.
The bill would require public school districts, open-enrollment charter schools and colleges and universities to use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition and examples of antisemitism in student disciplinary proceedings.
The IHRA defines antisemitism as “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”
A few examples the IHRA provides of antisemitism are “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor,” “applying double standards by requiring of it (Israel) a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation,” and “holding Jews collectively responsible for the actions of the state of Israel.”
Oli Hoffman, a student at the University of Texas at Austin, said the IHRA definition encourages “a dangerous conflation of the government of Israel and the Jewish people.”
“I am a proud Longhorn studying education,” Hoffman said, “and I can recall some respectful debates regarding Israel that I was a party to on campus that would be defined as antisemitic come Sept. 1 if this bill is passed.”
Students at UT Austin and universities throughout the country demonstrated support for Palestinians last spring, calling for their universities to divest from manufacturers supplying Israel with weapons in its strikes on Gaza.
UT officials called state police, who responded to the campus and arrested more than 100 people. While some have criticized the university for what they called a heavy-handed response, others have applauded it as necessary to combat protests they saw as antisemitic. Some point to the phrase some protesters chanted, “from the river to the sea,” as evidence of this.
“From the river to the sea” refers to a stretch of land between the Jordan River on the eastern flank of Israel and the occupied West Bank to the Mediterranean Sea to the west.
Pro-Palestinian activists have said this is a call for peace and equality in the Middle East, but SB 326’s author, Phil King, R-Weatherford, said he thinks that phrase calls for the killing of Jews.
Sandra Parker, vice chair of the Texas Holocaust, Genocide, and Antisemitism Advisory Commission and King’s invited witness, agreed and added that it also calls for the eradication of the Jewish state.
She stressed that the bill would allow school leaders to decide on their own if a student has violated their code of conduct and provides them a tool to determine whether the violation was motivated by antisemitism.
That could help the school determine what discipline is warranted, she said.
“Why is that necessary? Because you cannot defeat what you are unwilling to define,” Parker said. “We know the conduct is happening, but why? The answer can only be one of two things. Antisemitism is being tolerated and ignored or people don’t know what antisemitism is when they see it.”
Parker added that the bill could address incidents like one at a high school in San Antonio where she said a student who is not Jewish had an Israel flag stolen and destroyed by another student. The school then moved the student who owned the flag to another classroom rather than punish the students who destroyed the flag.
“This behavior was aimed to silence both Jewish students and those who support them,” Parker said.
But other Jewish Texans disagreed with King and Parker that the phrase “from the river to the sea” is antisemitic.
“Whatever the intentions of this bill, understand that it actually makes Jews in Texas less safe to formally associate us with a foreign government, evoking the longstanding antisemitic charge of dual loyalty that’s been leveled against Jewish people in the U.S. and Europe for decades, setting us apart from our neighbors and painting us as outsiders,” said Jennifer Margulies, who attends Congregation Beth Israel in Austin, which a man set on fire in 2022.
“I know what antisemitism looks like,” she said. “It looks like needing to reassure my child that it’s safe to attend Hebrew school when I have a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as I drive by the burnt black sanctuary doors to drop her off, hoping that I am not lying.”
Since protests broke out last spring, lawmakers have heard about an uptick in antisemitic incidents in schools. They heard that again on Tuesday from Jackie Nirenberg, a regional director for the Anti-defamation League.
She said the ADF and Hillel International, a Jewish Campus organization, surveyed Jewish college students at 135 colleges and universities across the U.S. and found that 83% of them have experienced or witnessed antisemitism since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel.
SB 326 was left pending in committee.
State Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, R-Southlake, has filed identical legislation in the House.
Article originally published by The Texas Tribune. To read the originally published article, click here.
LONGVIEW – Making his mark one mile at a time, our news partner, KETK reports that Kyndal Ray Edwards is taking a journey across America and shining a light on a topic people have a hard time talking about.
A walking testimony, Edwards started his journey in prison, knowing that he wanted to change his life and walk for a cause bigger than himself.
“I want to shed some light on it and let people know that there is hope,” Edwards said.
(NEW YORK) -- President Donald Trump has vowed to issue a fresh round of tariffs on April 2, presenting it as an inflection point for the economy weeks after a previous set of duties roiled markets and incited recession fears.
Trump has repeatedly referred to April 2 as "liberation day," saying a wide-ranging slate of reciprocal tariffs would rebalance U.S. trade relationships.
Trump's plan for reciprocal tariffs next week, however, is expected to be narrower than he previously vowed, though the plan remains under discussion, sources told ABC News this week.
The news of a potentially softer approach to forthcoming tariffs rallied U.S. stocks earlier this week, recovering some of the losses suffered earlier in March.
While key details remain unknown, new duties would ratchet up the global trade war, raising prices for an array of consumer goods and risking an economic slowdown, experts told ABC News.
"This certainly will be an escalation," Mary Lovely, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics who studies trade policy, told ABC News. "We know the direction of travel, if not how far this will go."
Here's what the latest round of tariffs could mean for prices and the economy, according to experts:
Will the tariffs on April 2 raise prices? In setting tariffs for April 2, the U.S. will target countries that have major trade imbalances with the U.S., sources said.
"It's 15% of the countries, but it's a huge amount of our trading volume," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said last week, describing the countries as a "Dirty 15."
Last year, according to federal census data, the U.S. had its biggest trade deficits with China, the European Union, Mexico, Vietnam, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Canada and India, among other nations.
Reciprocal tariffs could raise prices for imported goods from those countries, since importers typically pass along a share of the tax burden to consumers.
The tariffs could hike prices for furniture and consumer electronics from Vietnam, fresh fruits and vegetables from Mexico, and cars from South Korea, experts told ABC News.
"This is going to mean prices will ultimately go up," Jason Miller, a professor of supply chain management at Michigan State University, told ABC News.
The scale of price increases will likely depend on the tariff rate set by the Trump administration, which remains unclear, the experts said.
Speaking at the White House on Monday, Trump said the reciprocal tariffs could fall short of the rate that target countries impose on U.S. goods.
"I may give a lot of countries breaks," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. "I'm embarrassed to charge them what they've charged us."
Kyle Handley, a professor of economics at the University of California, San Diego, said he expects consumer prices to rise enough for consumers to identify the change.
"Depending on what tariff rates they put in place, it could be pretty massive," Handley said. "It will be a non-trivial increase in the price of imports. People will notice."
What do the tariffs on April 2 mean for the economy? Experts told ABC News the fresh tariffs would put downward pressure on U.S. economic growth, since the additional tax burden for importing businesses and uncertainty about additional duties could deter private sector investment.
"A lot of the uncertainty about tariffs very likely has firms sort of frozen in place as they're waiting to evaluate and see what happens," Miller said.
Looming tariffs also risk unease among shoppers, threatening to undermine a key engine of the U.S. economy, some experts said. Consumer attitudes worsened more than expected in March, dropping to their lowest levels since 2021, a Conference Board survey on Tuesday showed.
Consumer spending, which accounts for about two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, could weaken if shopper sentiment sours, Bret Kenwell, U.S. investment analyst at eToro, told ABC News in a statement.
By some key measures, however, the economy remains in solid shape. A recent jobs report showed steady hiring last month and a historically low unemployment rate. Inflation stands well below a peak attained in 2022, though price increases register nearly a percentage point higher than the Fed's goal of 2%.
Still, recession fears are mounting on Wall Street as businesses and consumers weather the trade war. Goldman Sachs earlier this month hiked its odds of a recession from 15% to 20%. Moody's Analytics pegged the chances of a recession over the next year at 35%.
"These tariffs will be very detrimental for economic performance and business growth," Handley said. "It may not take long for us to start seeing some of those effects."
RUSK – Rusk Rural Water Supply issued a boil water notice for customers on 25 roads in Cherokee County on Tuesday.
This boil water notice was issued after a main line leak. Our news partner, KETK, has a complete list of all of the roads affected. Any customers on the roads affected should bring any water to a vigorous rolling boil for at least two minutes. To view the compiled list, click here.
If customers have any questions, contact Rusk Rural Water Supply at 903-683-6178 or visit 1055 N Dickinson Dr. in Rusk.
NACOGDOCHES COUNTY — Officials have located the body of a man they believe has been missing since January. This is the second body found as part of the missing persons investigation. According to our news partner KETK, the Lufkin Police Department discovered a body they believe to be Michael Allen in the 5900 block of Old Tyler Road in Nacogdoches County. Allen’s family has been notified, however, officials said the body has been sent for an autopsy to confirm the identity.
In February, officials said they found the body of another man, which they believe to be 79-year-old Robert Saxon, who was reported missing at the same time Allen was. The body was found in Sabine Parish, La. Despite it being more than a month since the first body was discovered, the Lufkin Police Department said they are still pending autopsy results to officially identify the body.
At this time, the Lufkin Police Department said John Wayne McCroskey is a suspect and is being questioned. He is being held in the Angelina County Jail on unrelated charges.
(WASHINGTON) -- Measles vaccination rates appear to be increasing in some areas of the U.S. that have been affected by outbreaks this year.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) currently recommends that people receive two doses of the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine -- the first at ages 12 to 15 months and the second between 4 and 6 years old. One dose is 93% effective, and two doses are 97% effective, the CDC says.
Of the 378 measles cases confirmed by the CDC so far this year, the majority have been among those who are unvaccinated or whose vaccination status is unknown.
In western Texas, an outbreak has infected 327 people, according to data from the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS). Of those cases, just two have been among people fully vaccinated with the MMR vaccine.
Health officials have been urging anyone who isn't vaccinated to receive the MMR vaccine or to catch up on missed doses.
In Texas, as of March 16, at least 173,362 MMR vaccine doses have been administered across the state this year, according to DSHS data provided to ABC News.
This is higher than the number of doses administered in the state over the same period since at least 2020.
A DSHS spokesperson told ABC News that because there is no statewide requirement to report vaccine administration, the data is not a comprehensive accounting of all MMR vaccines administered in the state.
Lubbock County, in western Texas, has seen 10 measles cases so far this year, DSHS data shows. Despite not being at the epicenter of the outbreak, the number of people being vaccinated has increased, according to Katherine Wells, director of public health for the city of Lubbock.
"We're 75 miles east of the actual outbreak, but we're seeing an increase in the number of vaccinations that we're giving in our community," she told ABC News. "Over the last four weeks, our health department has been operating a walk-in vaccine clinic that's just for MMR, and that vaccine clinic [has] administered a little over 300 vaccines."
She added that health officials have seen multiple babies under 6 months old who have been exposed to measles. Because they are too young to be vaccinated, they have been given shots of immunoglobulin, which are antibodies that act as a post-exposure prophylaxis.
Wells said the vaccines are available at no cost, and health officials have been trying to spread the word over social media and the local news.
"So we're kind of just getting the people that, I think, either their children are behind on vaccines, just because parents get busy and it's hard to get your four-year-old sometimes into the doctor's office, or people that were kind of on the fence about vaccines and maybe said, 'Well, I don't want to vaccinate my kids, because you never see measles.' But now that you're seeing measles, they're bringing their children in for vaccinations," she said.
In conversations with colleagues in nearby health departments, such as in epicenter Gaines County, Wells has said it's been harder to reach residents to distribute the MMR vaccine, making the process somewhat of a "struggle."
She explained that in Lubbock, the health department building is large -- with most residents knowing where it is -- and the department has more outreach staff than smaller departments.
"I think it's a little bit harder in some of these rural areas, because they're setting up in places that might not be as familiar to individuals," Wells said. "They're finding different locations in order to have those clinics; they're starting to focus a lot more on school-based clinics. So, let's go to where the children are and get the parents to come to that school and then offer the vaccine there, which I think is a great tactic."
Meanwhile, in nearby New Mexico, the state Department of Health (NMDOH) reported a total of 43 measles cases so far this year. Most of the cases have been confirmed in Lea County, which borders western Texas.
Health officials suspect there may be a connection between the Texas and New Mexico cases, but a link has not yet been confirmed.
Data from NMDOH provided to ABC News shows that between Feb. 1 and March 24 of this year, more than 13,100 MMR doses have been administered. Of those, about 7,000 doses have been administered among those under age 18 and about 6,100 have been administered among adults.
This is more than the double the number of MMR vaccine doses that were administered over the same period last year, according to Robert Nott, communications director for the NMDOH. The vaccines are being administered at no charge.
"We're encouraged by the number of people getting vaccinated but we're not taking it for granted," Nott told ABC News. "You can see nationwide: measles is highly contagious."
Measles is one of the most contagious diseases known to humans. Just one infected patient can spread measles to up to nine out of 10 susceptible close contacts, according to the CDC.
The measles virus can linger in the air and live on surfaces for up to two hours after an infected person has left a room, the CDC says.
Wells, from Lubbock, said during a press briefing last week that it could take up to a year to gain control over the outbreak.
"Our number of cases are continuing to increase daily. There [are] also still cases that are unreported or under-reported because people aren't seeking testing," she told ABC News. "So, I still think we're on the growth side of this outbreak, and it's going to be until we get a significant number of vaccines and really be able to identify all of those cases. So, it'll take both of those things happening before we can get this under control."
WASHINGTON (AP) – Federal health officials said Tuesday they are pulling back $11.4 billion in COVID-19-related funds for state and local public health departments and other health organizations throughout the nation.
“The COVID-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago,” the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement.
Officials said the money was largely used for COVID-19 testing, vaccination and global projects as well as community health workers responding to COVID and a program established in 2021 to address COVID health disparities among high-risk and underserved patients, including those in minority populations. The move was first reported by NBC News.
Lori Freeman, CEO of the National Association of County & City Health Officials, said much of the funding was set to end soon anyway. “It’s ending in the next six months,” she said. “There’s no reason — why rescind it now? It’s just cruel and unusual behavior.”
In a related move, more than two dozen COVID-related research grants funded by the National Institutes of Health have been canceled. Earlier this month, the Trump administration shut down ordering from covidtest.gov, the site where Americans could have COVID-19 tests delivered to their mailboxes for no charge.
Although the COVID federal public health emergency has ended, the virus is still killing Americans: 458 people per week on average have died from COVID over the past four weeks, according to CDC data.
HHS wouldn’t provide many details about how the federal government expects to recover the money from what it called “impacted recipients.” But HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon said in an email: “The $11.4 billion is undisbursed funds remaining.”
Freeman said her understanding is that state health departments already had the COVID money.
“The funding was authorized by Congress, was appropriated by Congress, and it was out the door, basically, into the hands of the grantees” — states, she said, which decide how to distribute it locally.
Some of the COVID money is used to address other public health issues, Freeman added. For example, wastewater surveillance that began during COVID became important for detecting other diseases, too.
“It was being used in significant ways to track flu and patterns of new disease and emerging diseases — and even more recently with the measles outbreak,” Freeman said.
Under both the first Trump administration and the Biden administration, billions of dollars was allocated for COVID response through legislation, including a COVID relief bill and the American Rescue Plan Act.
At this point, it’s unclear exactly how health departments will be affected by the pullback of funds. But some were starting to look at what it might mean for them. In Washington state, for example, health officials were notified that more than $125 million in COVID-related funding has been immediately terminated. They are “assessing the impact” of the actions, they said.
In Los Angeles County, health officials said they could lose more than $80 million in core funding for vaccinations and other services. “Much of this funding supports disease surveillance, public health lab services, outbreak investigations, infection control activities at healthcare facilities and data transparency,” a department official wrote in an email.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration’s top intelligence officials stressed to Congress the threat they said was posed by international criminal gangs, drug cartels and human smuggling, testifying in a hearing Tuesday that unfolded against the backdrop of a security breach involving the mistaken leak of attack plans to a journalist.
The annual hearing on worldwide threats before the Senate Intelligence Committee offered a glimpse of the new administration’s reorienting of priorities at a time when President Donald Trump has opened a new line of communication with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, and as his administration has focused national security attention closer to home to counter violent crime that officials link to cross-border drug trafficking.
“Criminal groups drive much of the unrest and lawlessness in the Western Hemisphere,” said Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence. Atop a long list of national security challenges, she cited the need to combat cartels that she said were “engaging in a wide array of illicit activity, from narcotics trafficking to money laundering to smuggling of illegal immigrants and human trafficking.”
Different parties prioritized different issues
The hearing occurred as officials across multiple presidential administrations have described an increasingly complicated blizzard of threats.
In the committee room, it unfolded in split-screen fashion: Republican senators hewed to the pre-scheduled topic by drilling down on China and the fentanyl scourge, while Democrat after Democrat offered sharp criticism over a security breach they called reckless and dangerous.
“If this information had gotten out, American lives could have been lost,” Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the intelligence committee said of the exposed Signal messages. Added Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon: “I am of the view that there ought to be resignations.” “An embarrassment,” said Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado, who shouted down CIA Director John Ratcliffe as he demanded answers.
Gabbard and other officials did note the U.S. government’s longstanding national security concerns, including the threat she said was posed by countries including Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.
China, for one, has heavily invested in stealth aircraft, hypersonic weapons and nuclear arms and is looking to outcompete the U.S. when it comes to artificial intelligence, while Russia remains a “formidable competitor” and still maintains a large nuclear arsenal.
Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed during a lengthy call with Trump to an immediate pause in strikes against energy infrastructure in what the White House described as the first step in a “movement to peace.”
Terrorism, too, featured prominently in the hearing.
“The direction for the FBI is to track down any individuals with any terrorist ties whatsoever, whether it be ISIS or another foreign terrorist organization,” said FBI Director Kash Patel. “And now to include the new designations of the cartels, down south and elsewhere.”
But the elevation of international drug trafficking as a top-tier threat was a notable turnabout in focus given that the U.S. government over the past four years has been more likely to place a premium on concerns over sophisticated Chinese espionage plots, ransomware attacks that have crippled hospitals and international and domestic terrorism plots.
The hearing unfolded in the midst of an eruption over text messaging
Tuesday’s hearing took taking place one day after news broke that several top national security officials in the Republican administration, including Ratcliffe, Gabbard and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, texted attack plans for military strikes in Yemen to a group chat in a secure messaging app that included the editor-in-chief for The Atlantic.
The text chain “contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Iran-backed Houthi-rebels in Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing,” journalist Jeffrey Goldberg reported. The strikes began two hours after Goldberg received the details.
“Horrified” by the leak of what is historically strictly guarded information, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, said he will be demanding answers in a separate hearing Wednesday with his panel.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court hears arguments Wednesday in a major legal fight over the $8 billion a year the federal government spends to subsidize phone and internet services in schools, libraries and rural areas, in a new test of federal regulatory power.
The justices are reviewing an appellate ruling that struck down as unconstitutional the Universal Service Fund, the tax that has been added to phone bills for nearly 30 years.
Tens of millions of Americans have benefited from the programs that receive money from the fund and eliminating it “would cause severe disruptions,” lawyers for associations of telecommunications companies wrote.
A conservative advocacy group, Consumer Research, challenged the practice. The justices had previously denied two appeals from Consumer Research after federal appeals courts upheld the program. But the full 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, among the nation’s most conservative, ruled 9-7 that the method of funding is unconstitutional.
The 5th Circuit held that Congress has given too much authority to the FCC and the agency in turn has ceded too much power to a private entity, or administrator.
The last time the Supreme Court invoked what is known as the non-delegation doctrine to strike down a federal law was in 1935. But several conservative justices have suggested they are open to breathing new life into the legal doctrine.
The conservative-led court also has reined in federal agencies in high-profile rulings in recent years. Last year, the court reversed a 40-year-old case that had been used thousands of times to uphold federal regulations. In 2022, the court ruled Congress has to act with specificity before agencies can address “major questions,” in a ruling that limited the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to combat climate change.
The Trump administration, which has moved aggressively to curtail administrative agencies in other areas, is defending the FCC program. The appeal was initially filed by the Biden administration.
“Neither Congress’s conferral of authority on the FCC, the FCC’s reliance on advice from the administrator, nor the combination of the two violates the Constitution,” acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris wrote in a Supreme Court brief.
Consumer Research calls the situation a “nightmare scenario” in which Congress has set no limits on how much the FCC can raise to fund the program. “Predictably, the USF tax rate has skyrocketed. It was under 4% in 1998 but now approaches 37%,” lawyers for the group wrote.
They said there’s an easy fix: Congress can appropriate money for the program, or at least set a maximum rate.
But last year, Congress let funding lapse for an internet subsidy program, the Affordable Connectivity Program, and the FCC moved to fill the gap by providing money from the E-rate program, one of several funded by the Universal Service Fund.
Congress created the Universal Service Fund as part of its overhaul of the telecommunications industry in 1996, aimed at promoting competition and eliminating monopolies. The subsidies for rural and low-income areas were meant to ensure that phone and internet services would remain affordable.
WEST TEXAS (AP) – The measles outbreaks in West Texas and New Mexico have surpassed a combined 370 cases, and two unvaccinated people have died from measles-related causes.
Measles is caused by a highly contagious virus that’s airborne and spreads easily when an infected person breathes, sneezes or coughs. It is preventable through vaccines, and has been considered eliminated from the U.S. since 2000.
Already, the U.S. has more measles cases this year than in all of 2024, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last week. Here’s what else you need to know about measles in the U.S.
How many measles cases are there in Texas and New Mexico?
Texas state health officials said Tuesday there were 18 new cases of measles since Friday, bringing the total to 327 across 15 counties — most in West Texas. Forty people have been hospitalized since the outbreak began. Lamb County was new to the list, with one case.
New Mexico health officials announced one new case Tuesday, bringing the state’s total to 43. Most of the cases are in Lea County, where two people have been hospitalized, and two are in in Eddy County.
Oklahoma’s state health department has nine total cases as of Tuesday, including seven confirmed cases and two probable cases. The first two probable cases were “associated” with the West Texas and New Mexico outbreaks.
Measles cases also have been reported in Alaska, California, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont and Washington.
An outbreak in Kansas has grown to 10 cases across three counties — Grant, Morton and Stevens counties. A state health department spokesperson did not respond to emails about whether the outbreak is linked to the situation in Texas or New Mexico.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines an outbreak as three or more related cases. The agency counts three clusters that qualified as outbreaks in 2025 as of Tuesday.
In the U.S., cases and outbreaks are generally traced to someone who caught the disease abroad. It can then spread, especially in communities with low vaccination rates. In 2019, the U.S. saw 1,274 cases and almost lost its status of having eliminated measles.
Do you need an MMR booster?
The best way to avoid measles is to get the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. The first shot is recommended for children between 12 and 15 months old and the second between 4 and 6 years old.
People at high risk for infection who got the shots many years ago may want to consider getting a booster if they live in an area with an outbreak, said Scott Weaver with the Global Virus Network, an international coalition. Those may include family members living with someone who has measles or those especially vulnerable to respiratory diseases because of underlying medical conditions.
Adults with “presumptive evidence of immunity” generally don’t need measles shots now, the CDC said. Criteria include written documentation of adequate vaccination earlier in life, lab confirmation of past infection or being born before 1957, when most people were likely to be infected naturally.
A doctor can order a lab test called an MMR titer to check your levels of measles antibodies, but health experts don’t always recommend this route and insurance coverage can vary.
Getting another MMR shot is harmless if there are concerns about waning immunity, the CDC says.
People who have documentation of receiving a live measles vaccine in the 1960s don’t need to be revaccinated, but people who were immunized before 1968 with an ineffective measles vaccine made from “killed” virus should be revaccinated with at least one dose, the agency said. That also includes people who don’t know which type they got.
What are the symptoms of measles?
Measles first infects the respiratory tract, then spreads throughout the body, causing a high fever, runny nose, cough, red, watery eyes and a rash.
The rash generally appears three to five days after the first symptoms, beginning as flat red spots on the face and then spreading downward to the neck, trunk, arms, legs and feet. When the rash appears, the fever may spike over 104 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the CDC.
Most kids will recover from measles, but infection can lead to dangerous complications such as pneumonia, blindness, brain swelling and death.
How can you treat measles?
There’s no specific treatment for measles, so doctors generally try to alleviate symptoms, prevent complications and keep patients comfortable.
Why do vaccination rates matter?
In communities with high vaccination rates — above 95% — diseases like measles have a harder time spreading through communities. This is called “herd immunity.”
But childhood vaccination rates have declined nationwide since the pandemic and more parents are claiming religious or personal conscience waivers to exempt their kids from required shots.
DALLAS (AP) – Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett mocked her state’s governor during a weekend appearance, referring to Greg Abbott — who uses a wheelchair — as “Gov. Hot Wheels” while speaking at a banquet in Los Angeles.
“You all know we got Gov. Hot Wheels down there. Come on, now,” Crockett, a Dallas Democrat, said about Abbott, a Republican, while addressing the Human Rights Campaign event. “And the only thing hot about him is that he is a hot-ass mess, honey.”
Abbott was paralyzed in 1984 after a tree fell on him while he was running. The accident severely damaged Abbott’s spinal cord. Abbott, now 67, was elected in 2014.
Crockett, elected to the House in 2022, was roundly criticized by Republicans for the comments, an aside she made during her speech to the civil rights group event after she thanked Morgan Cox, a group board member and fellow Dallas resident, according to video of the event posted to Human Rights Campaign’s YouTube channel.
“Crockett’s comments are disgraceful,” Texas Sen. John Cornyn posted on the social media platform X. “Shameful.”
Crockett suggested Tuesday that she was not referring to Abbott’s condition. Instead, she posted on X that she was referring to Abbott’s policy of sending thousands of immigrants who were in Texas illegally to cities where local policy limits cooperation with federal immigration authorities, such as New York and Philadelphia.
“I was thinking about the planes, trains, and automobiles he used to transfer migrants into communities led by Black mayors, deliberately stoking tension and fear among the most vulnerable,” the post stated.
Abbott’s office did not immediately replied to requests for comment.
Crockett has faced criticism from Republicans for suggesting last week that tech billionaire Elon Musk, heading the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, “be taken down.”
FORT WORTH (AP) – A federal judge in Texas has set a June trial date for the U.S. government’s years-old conspiracy case against Boeing for misleading regulators about the 737 Max jetliner before two of the planes crashed, killing 346 people.
U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor did not explain in the scheduling order he issued on Tuesday why he decided to set the case for trial. Lawyers for the aerospace company and the Justice Department have spent months trying to renegotiate a July 2024 plea agreement that called for Boeing to plead guilty to a single felony charge.
The judge rejected that deal in December, saying that diversity, inclusion and equity policies the Justice Department had in place at the time might influence the selection of a monitor to oversee the company’s compliance with the terms of its proposed sentence.
Since then, O’Connor had three times extended the deadline for the two sides to report how they planned to proceed. His most recent extension, granted earlier this month, gave them until April 11 to “confer on a potential resolution of this case short of trial.”
The judge revoked the remaining time with his Tuesday order, which laid out a timeline for proceedings leading up to a June 23 trial in Fort Worth.
The Department of Justice declined to comment on the judge’s action. A Boeing statement shed no light on the status of the negotiations.
“As stated in the parties’ recent filings, Boeing and the Department of Justice continue to be engaged in good faith discussions regarding an appropriate resolution of this matter,” the company said.
The deal the judge refused to approve would have averted a criminal trial by allowing Boeing to plead guilty to conspiring to defraud Federal Aviation Administration regulators who approved minimal pilot-training requirements for the 737 Max nearly a decade ago. More intensive training in flight simulators would have increased the cost for airlines to operate the then-new plane model.
The development and certification of what has become Boeing’s bestselling airliner became an intense focus of safety investigators after two of Max planes crashed less than five months apart in 2018 and 2019. Many relatives of passengers who died off the coast of Indonesia and in Ethiopia have pushed for the prosecution of former Boeing officials, a public criminal trial and more severe financial punishment for the company.
In response to criticism of last year’s plea deal from victims’ families, prosecutors said they did not have evidence to argue that Boeing’s deception played a role in the crashes. Prosecutors told O’Connor the conspiracy to commit fraud charge was the toughest they could prove against Boeing.
O’Connor did not object in his December ruling against the plea agreement to the sentence Boeing would have faced: a fine of up to $487.2 million with credit given for $243.6 million in previously paid penalties; a requirement to invest $455 million in compliance and safety programs; and outside oversight during three years of probation.
Instead, the judge focused his negative assessment on the process for selecting an outsider to keep an eye on Boeing’s actions to prevent fraud. He expressed particular concern that the agreement “requires the parties to consider race when hiring the independent monitor … ‘in keeping with the (Justice) Department’s commitment to diversity and inclusion.’”
“In a case of this magnitude, it is in the utmost interest of justice that the public is confident this monitor selection is done based solely on competency. The parties’ DEI efforts only serve to undermine this confidence in the government and Boeing’s ethics and anti-fraud efforts,” O’Connor wrote.
An executive order President Donald Trump signed during the first week of his second term sought to end diversity, equity and inclusion programs across the federal government. Trump’s move may render the judge’s concerns moot, depending on the outcome of legal challenges to his order.
Boeing agreed to the plea deal only after the Justice Department determined last year that the company violated a 2021 agreement that had protected it against criminal prosecution on the same fraud-conspiracy charge.
Government officials started reexamining the case after a door plug panel blew off an Alaska Airlines 737 Max during flight in January 2024. That incident renewed concerns about manufacturing quality and safety at Boeing, and put the company under intense scrutiny by regulators and lawmakers.
Boeing lawyers said last year that if the plea deal were rejected, the company would challenge the Justice Department’s finding that it breached the deferred-prosecution agreement. O’Connor helped Boeing’s position by writing in his December decision that it was not clear what the company did to violate the 2021 deal.
EL PASO (AP) – The gunman who killed 23 people in a racist attack at an El Paso Walmart in 2019 in one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history has been offered a plea deal to avoid the death penalty, a Texas prosecutor said Tuesday.
The announcement by El Paso County District Attorney James Montoya is a significant turn in the criminal case of Patrick Crusius, 26, who was already sentenced to 90 consecutive life sentences after pleading guilty in 2023 to federal hate crime charges.
Under the Biden administration, federal prosecutors also took the death penalty off the table but did not explain why.
In addition to the federal case, Crusius was also charged in state court with capital murder.
Montoya said he supports the death penalty and believes Crusius deserves it. But he said he met with the families of the victims and there was an overriding desire to conclude the process, though some relatives were willing to wait as long as it took for a death sentence.
“The vast majority of them want this case over and done with as quickly as possible,” he said.
Montoya also said pursuing the death penalty would mean a long and drawn-out legal battle with many hearings and appeals.
“I could see a worst-case scenario where this would not go to trial until 2028 if we continued to seek the death penalty,” he said.
Montoya, a Democrat, took office in January after defeating a Republican incumbent who was appointed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. Montoya’s predecessors supported sending Crusius to death row.
“I’ve heard about it. I think the guy does deserve the death penalty, to be honest,” Abbott said Tuesday about the decision. “Any shooting like that is what capital punishment is for.”
Crusius, who is white, was 21 years old and had dropped out of community college when police say he drove more than 700 miles (1,100 kilometers) from his home near Dallas to target Hispanics in El Paso.
Moments after posting a racist screed online that warned of a Hispanic “invasion” of the state, he opened fire with an AK-style rifle inside and outside the store.
Before the shooting, Crusius appears to have been consumed by the immigration debate, posting online in support of building the border wall and other messages praising the hardline border policies of President Donald Trump, who was in his first term at the time. He went further in the rant he posted before the attack, saying Hispanics were going to take over the government and economy.
In the years since the shooting, Republicans have called migrants crossing the southern border an “invasion” and dismissed criticism that such rhetoric fuels anti-immigrant views and violence.
In the U.S. government’s case, Crusius received a life sentence for each of the 90 charges against him, half of which were classified as hate crimes. Then-Attorney General Merrick Garland said after the sentencing that “no one in this country should have to live in fear of hate-fueled violence.”
One of his attorneys told the judge before the sentencing that his client had a “broken brain” and his thinking was “at odds with reality.”
Federal prosecutors did not formally explain their decision not to seek the death penalty, but they did acknowledge that Crusius suffered from schizoaffective disorder, which can be marked by hallucinations, delusions and mood swings.
The people who were killed ranged in age from a 15-year-old high school athlete to several grandparents. They included immigrants, a retired city bus driver, teachers, tradesmen including a former iron worker, and several Mexican nationals who had crossed the U.S. border on routine shopping trips.
In 2023, Crusius agreed to pay more than $5 million to his victims. Court records showed that his attorneys and the Justice Department reached an agreement over the restitution amount, which was then approved by a U.S. district judge. There was no indication that he had significant assets.
